Which country has the most lakes?
Quick answer
Canada has the most natural lakes of any country. A global study estimated it has about 880,000 lakes larger than 10 hectares, roughly 62% of all such lakes on Earth. Many formed when Ice Age glaciers scraped hollows into the land and then melted.
Counting lakes is tricky, because the result depends on how small a pond you count. Using the widely cited HydroLAKES global database, which counts lakes of at least 10 hectares (0.1 km²), Canada is far ahead of every other country.
Countries with the most lakes
| Rank | Country | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | ~880,000 lakes over 10 ha |
| 2 | Russia | Hundreds of thousands, including Lake Baikal |
| 3 | United States | Mostly in Alaska and the northern states |
| 4 | China | Many on the Tibetan Plateau |
| 5 | Sweden | Nearly 100,000 lakes |
| 6 | Finland | Called “the land of a thousand lakes,” with about 188,000 including small ones |
Why Canada has so many
During the last Ice Age, thick ice sheets covered almost all of Canada. As glaciers moved, they carved basins into hard rock of the Canadian Shield and left behind dams of rock and soil. When the ice melted around 10,000 years ago, water filled these hollows.
Famous Canadian lakes
- Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories; Great Slave is the deepest lake in North America at about 614 m.
- Lake Superior, shared with the US, is the world’s largest freshwater lake by area.
- Lake Louise and Moraine Lake in Alberta, famous for their turquoise color from glacial “rock flour.”
World lake records
| Record | Lake |
|---|---|
| Largest by area | Caspian Sea (often classed as a lake) |
| Largest freshwater by area | Lake Superior |
| Deepest and oldest | Lake Baikal, Russia (~1,642 m deep, ~25 million years old) |
Canada also has the world’s longest coastline. In the US, the deepest lake is Crater Lake.
Still curious?
Jump to a random question from the archive.